[MUD-Dev] Who Killed Miss Norway?

[shren]

On Tue, 29 Apr 2003, Richard A. Bartle wrote:

> It doesn't surprise me that people at LegendMUD reacted the way
> they did to the death of a friend. What does perhaps cause me to
> raise an eyebrow is the fact that no-one twigged Karyn might not
> be all she claimed to be at the time.

What's the classic story?

From:

   http://www.wweek.com/flatfiles/printstory.lasso?autonumb=3527

--<cut>--
Stalin's successor, Nikita Khrushchev, first denounced his
predecessor and his crimes in 1956. At one large gathering where
Khrushchev was speaking, someone from the audience heckled, "You
were one of Stalin's colleagues! Why didn't you stop him?" "Who said
that?" Khrushchev bellowed angrily. A long, sick silence fell over
the crowd. "Now," Khrushchev said quietly, ashamedly, "you know
why."
--<cut>--

In cases like this, those who fall for it fall for it right off, and
there's a community of mourners within an hour as messages fly over
the internet.  Assuming you get the message in the first five
minutes, by the time you can do the research and prove a hoax, most
of the community is already on the bandwagon and drinking at the
virtual wake.

Now, do you want to be the one to burst the bubble?  How many people
do you think will shoot the messenger?  What do you really get out
of making everyone who fell for it look like an idiot?

Note that the story was finally broken by an outsider, and it was
done not in the name of breaking the fraud but because it made a
good article.  The act of exposing the fraud was not done for the
sake of exposing the fraud - it was a *byproduct*.

I'll bet people guessed.  They just did the likely thing and kept
thier mouth shut.


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